We’ve finally arrived at creating our first maps based on the data we imported and cleaned in the previous sessions. The focus of this first session lies on the package tmap to create maps.

1

Let’s start super simple. Import our enhanced district data. Create a map with only the outline of Germany and one where the districts’ borders are visible. Chose a color of your choice for both maps.

2

In a second step, we want to visualize some information on the German districts contained in the attribute table. Choose the column death_rate and create a map of Covid-19 deaths in Germany. Alternate the map by:

  • add a legend title and change the color palette
  • add a title to the map and change the font color of the title
  • place the legend outside of the map at the bottom
  • …
Assign your map to an object called covid_map.

Combine the following options with a plus sign:

  • add a legend title and change the color palette: tm_fill(col = "", title = "", palette = "") +
  • add a title to the map and change the font color of the title: tm_layout(title = "", title.color = "") +
  • place the legend outside: tm_legend(legend.outside = TRUE/FALSE, legend.outside.position = "")
If you run colors(), R returns the names of all built-in colors.

To assign your map to an object, use the arrow <-.